s1mple on what makes this the best Na`Vi: "All of us have insane individual skill and we understand each other better"

We caught up with Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, who won his 10th MVP after leading Natus Vincere to a dominant victory at IEM Katowice.

Natus Vincere completed their title-winning run at IEM Katowice with another incredibly dominant display in the best-of-five final against G2, who could only put up a fight on Dust2 while the CIS-based side ran over the Frenchmen on Nuke and Mirage to pick up a 3-0 series win.

In our interview with the Ukrainian superstar, we asked him about why he called this lineup the best version of Na`Vi and what his chances of catching up to Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz in MVPs are:

From that close win over FaZe at the end of the group stage to the incredibly dominant run here in the playoffs, how proud are you of the achievement this early into the lineup?

I'm proud that we had such great results over the past two weeks only. We played the final against mouz, lost it, we beat everyone in our group at BLAST, and now we won the tournament that I didn't expect to win like three or four months ago. I think we're doing a great job and I'm just happy for everyone to step up. Everyone was on the next level of confidence, and because of this they are just playing at 100%.

Nuke is a map that hasn't historically been the best for you, but here you've now had two dominant wins on it against Astralis and now G2, what was behind that?

It's always our coach and our in-game leader behind that. They just remove or add some small details before any opponent and, because of that, the opponent doesn't know how we're going to control some kind of areas. But, of course, we always progress on maps that we lose. Like Nuke against FaZe twice and Mirage to fnatic, as well. We're just trying to find more and more time because we understand that only with a good map pool you can beat all these teams at this tournament.

You seemed just more and more confident to make big plays here, how does it make you feel that you have these players behind you that can step up like Boombl4 did on Nuke even if those plays don't work out?

I just see it and enjoy. I saw Boombl4 laughing, smiling after his score, and I'm just asking myself "How is it happening that our in-game leader so easily controlled the whole map?" And same with every teammate. You just understand and you know, you feel that they're going to do something insane.

You've called this the best Na`Vi. What does this lineup have that the previous ones didn't?

I think all of our players have insane individual skill. All of our players are the same age, so we understand each other better outside and inside the game. We have the psychologist who created this system of our mental preparation before games, so big thanks to him because he always does a great job.

Can you give an example of what he does with you to prepare you?

For example, we have these talks at our bootcamp where we talk with our psychologist. You talk with him not because you need to do it but because you want to. Because you feel nervous, you're feeling panic, and you want to just focus on your own game, focus on the belief in your team, and forget any other stuff inside of your head.

This is your 10th MVP, which means that you now have the second-most MVP awards alongside GeT_RiGhT and kennyS. What do you think your chances are of catching up to device, who has 15?

Oh, it would be nice, but I just want more trophies. I know that good teams win tournaments from last year, and it's a much better feeling when you get the trophies. But, of course, I want to always show my best performance and I know all of our players want to. I know they can easily get these MVPs, as well. Everything depends on the timings on maps. When we play on the highest level, as you saw nobody came to Perfecto, so he couldn't find any kills. When Boombl4 gets 28 kills per half, it's pretty hard to get more numbers. I'm happy if anyone would get the MVP, but I just want to keep winning tournaments with my team.